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Roasted Brussels Sprouts Salad with Grapes

January 31, 2012

My lab headed over to Sweet Cheeks in Fenway to stuff ourselves with BBQ for lunch one day last week. The restaurant was recently opened by Tiffani Faison, who was a finalist on both Top Chef Season 1 and Top Chef All-Stars. You can probably guess that I was pretty excited to check it out!

Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed with my pulled pork sandwich. The meat just wasn’t as tender and juicy as the pork at Blue Ribbon, and the sandwich was advertised as being served on Texas Toast, which I always thought was thick slices of garlic bread, but apparently is just normal slices of white bread? I did like that they had a couple different sauce options, and I will definitely be returning to see how Sweet Cheeks’ ribs and brisket stack up at some point. Their sides, however, blew Blue Ribbon’s out of the water. I wanted to dive into the mac & cheese, and my favorite part of the meal actually turned out to be their farm fresh salad. I know, I know, I was surprised too, who would expect a killer salad at a BBQ joint? The greens were tossed with hazelnuts, Brussels sprouts, and grapes, and the combo was perfectly balanced. It was so tasty that I decided I needed to make a salad featuring grapes and Brussels sprouts at home!

I mixed a large bunch of spinach and mixed spring greens in my salad bowl, along with roasted Brussels sprouts, halved grapes, dried cranberries, chopped pecans, and a healthy dose of shaved pecorino romano cheese. Then I took portions out throughout the week and dressed it with balsamic vinaigrette as I went along. I even caught Apolinaras dipping into the salad bowl a couple times – if that doesn’t indicate how delicious this is, I don’t know what does. Thanks to Sweet Cheeks for the inspiration!

The ribs are really, really good. Skip the brisket. I also don’t understand why they give you plain white bread. I have a feeling a lot of bread is being wasted there. This salad, on the other hand, was awesome, and I love your re-creation of it!

How sad that the pulled pork was disappointing! I was expecting more from Tiffani. At least this salad sounds awesome! It’s just the kind of thing I LOVE to have for lunch. I’m sure I’ll be recreating it soon.

Texas Toast is NOT plain white sandwhich bread! It’s thick sliced, toasted white sandwhich bread, typically it will have butter and garlic, sometimes just garlic, but is always toasted! How disappointing. Many resturants in Texas and Oklahoma DO serve plain, untoasted, unseasoned sandwhich bread with their bbq (to “mop” up the sauce) but they don’t call that texas toast.

Megan – Thanks for the ribs recommendation – I will definitely try them next time I was also sad that they don’t serve biscuits at lunch. I looove biscuits and Bianca said they were good in her review, so I need to go for dinner next time!

Amanda – That’s what I thought! It was plan white sandwich bread, like Wonder Bread – totally not what I expected…